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Research on language standardization witnessed remarkable progress over the past two decades. Building on the strong foundations laid by Einar Haugen, the scholarly canon on the topic was renewed, while also addressing a number of shortcomings of earlier theory building. As historical sociolinguistics gained momentum, standardization history faced the challenge of including 'voices from below' as they appeared in new and socially inclusive corpora of egodocuments from the past centuries. This implied an increased focus on the formerly overlooked role and presence of non-standard varieties, but also on the ideological driving factors behind many standardization efforts. The article makes a case for specific and ongoing attention to the implementation phase of standardization measures, as well as for the study of language conflicts from times past to help prevent imminent geopolitical struggles (or, for worse, to inform our understanding of these conflicts in the near future). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on multilingualism in language contact, language use, and language planning. Topics discussed include historical sociolinguistics and language variation in culture; language planning and its phrases for historical linguistics; sociolinguistic identity; and school inspection. It further includes settings in historical multilingualism, language varieties in text fragments for multilingual experience, official announcements for promoting the same, and standards in language ideology.

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses several reports from the issue related to language and religion as a sociolinguistic field of study.

The article presents information about the gradual disappearance of dialect use in regions of the Netherlands and in Germany. Research results are described which indicate that younger generations use Standard Dutch and Standard German more than older generations. Factors such as income level and loyalty to social groups are also examined in terms of their impact on the use of dialects as opposed to standard language. Tables are included with statistical data regarding the age, occupation, and social group of people with various levels of fluency in dialects.

‘In looking back upon the history of ordinary people, we are not merely trying to give it a retrospective political significance which it did not always have, we are trying more generally to explore an unknown dimension of the past.’ (Hobsbawm 1998: 270) The historiography of modern Western languages has traditionally concentrated on unification and standardization processes. This approach was deeply rooted in 19th and early 20th century (language) ideologies and (language) politics. The language discourse in many Western countries displayed a remarkable collaboration of linguists with politicians, historians and writers in constructing a picture of unified nations with autonomous cultural, especially literary and linguistic, traditions that were sometimes projected backwards to the Middle Ages and beyond. Hence, generations of scholars and teachers have presented language history as a long march toward a uniform standard. Variation and other linguistic digressions were usually either ignored or stigmatised as corrupted language and not considered as suitable data for linguistic research. Up to the end of the 20th century, many textbooks on national language histories were dominated by this teleological view, portraying ‘classical’ authors as role models for language norms and style. As such, language history was largely reduced to the study of literary language, often coinciding with the high variety employed and received by only a tiny minority of the population. ‘Non-standard’ variation – let alone language use from the non-elite – was usually regarded as corrupt and vulgar and, in an act of ‘sanitary purism’ (Milroy 2005, 324–326) or ‘verbal hygiene’ (Cameron 1995), simply cleansed from textbooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the written Dutch of lower class writers in 19th century Bruges (Flanders, Belgium). None of the scribes conformed to any of the prestige norms for Dutch spelling at the time. They all used an idiosyncratic orthography instead, full of variability but not chaotic. On the level of style and syntax, these texts are characterised by ‘stylistic breakdown’. The combination of these orthographical and stylistic features was not typical for lower class writing as such. In Bruges, middle and upper class writers displayed similar writing patterns, but they abandoned this ‘style’ for the standard earlier than the lower class writers did. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of historical sociolinguistics. History and evolution of the term "Historical Sociolinguistics" are highlighted. Restrictions of the internationally visible output on historical to the study of the social language history of German and English about 15 years ago are discussed.